Understanding the bear movement in gay male culture: redefining masculinity

The bear movement emerged in the gay male culture of the 1980s, but little research on this group has been conducted. The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine the meanings and functions of bear identity. Six bear-identified men participated in intensive interviews investigating this question. Results suggest that men who identify as bears consciously adopt a masculine aesthetic that signifies values of self-acceptance and maturity. The participants described the acceptance of diverse body shapes and ages within the bear community as leading to positive self-esteem and body image. Results are discussed in relation to clinical and advocacy work. They broaden the awareness of the diversity of cultures that exist within the gay community.     

Analysis of strategic plans to assess planning for sustainability of comprehensive community initiatives

In order to achieve the intended impact on a community, comprehensive community initiatives must sustain programs once they have been implemented. However, planning for sustainability is challenging and is rarely incorporated in the planning process of an initiative. The current study examined 19 5-year plans developed during the planning phase of the Comprehensive Strategy for Serious, Violent and Chronic Juvenile Offenders. Quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to assess the extent to which the construct of sustainability was incorporated. The plan analysis was supplemented with results from other components of the complex evaluation design implemented as part of the process evaluation of Comprehensive Strategy. Results suggested that sustainability was not accounted for during the planning phase of this initiative. The implications of these findings, including the importance of planning for sustainability in order to achieve sustainability, are discussed.     

Factors enhancing adaptive coping and mental health in lesbian youth: a review of the literature

Mental health practitioners who find themselves working with lesbian youth have a limited knowledge base by which to guide them in the helping process. This article explores, examines, and synthesizes current literature in an attempt to uncover factors that serve to enhance adaptive coping strategies for lesbian youth.     

Power play: the use of space to control and signify power in the workplace

ABSTRACT

The findings of this article emerge from an eight-month study examining career identity practices amongst a select group of fitness professionals in the U.K. We examine how the inter-relationship between physical and social space can denote how power is acquired, displayed, and used by individuals interacting in a shared space. The findings show that power is signified through spatial practices as individuals negotiate through triadic space, creating an identity of space and place for both trainer and client that identifies power, and signifies who has power. Fitness professionals with high levels of symbolic power are able to subvert organizational spatial norms to better serve themselves and their clients, while those with lower levels of symbolic power are forced to, or choose to, negotiate or abdicate space to others. These findings are relevant to a wide range of occupations where self-employment and contract workers interact in shared space.     

Protesting the police: anti-police brutality claims as a predictor of police repression of protest

Police face a unique dilemma when policing protests that explicitly target them, such as the anti-police brutality protests that have swept the United States recently. Because extant research finds that police response to protests is largely a function of the threat – and especially the threat to police – posed by a protest, police may repress these protests more than other protests, as they may constitute a challenge to their legitimacy as a profession. Other research suggests police agencies are strongly motivated by reputational concerns, suggesting they may treat these protests with special caution to avoid further public scrutiny. Using data on over 7,000 protests events in New York over a 35-year period from 1960 to 1995, I test these competing hypotheses and find that police respond to protests making anti-police brutality claims much more aggressively than other protests, after controlling for indicators of threat and weakness used in previous studies. Police are about twice as likely to show up to anti-police brutality protests compared with otherwise similar protests making other claims and, once there, they intervene (either make arrests, use force or violence against protesters, or both) at nearly half of these protests, compared to about one in three protests making other claims.     

Walking a tightrope: reflections on police gatekeeping roles in suicide research in Ghana

Engaging non-conventional gatekeepers such as the police presents both promises and perils. Although studies have relied on police data for researching suicide and other sensitive topics in Africa, there is a paucity of literature that explores or reflects on police gatekeeping and its research implications. This paper presents authors’ reflections on police gatekeeping in a qualitative suicide study in Accra, Ghana. The main observation is that the process was double-edged. On the one hand, it led to field delays and costs, (mis)apprehensions and positionality problems, and trust building challenges. On the other hand, it vouched for research(er) credibility, provided therapeutic openings, and facilitated the viability of research with the suicide bereaved. Sensitivity to research context, sensitising the police, and reinforcing ‘therapeutic-research discourse’ with participants, are recommended means for aligning participants’ goals to research goals and for achieving therapeutic disclosures.     

Women’s attitudes towards the medicalization of childbirth and their associations with planned and actual modes of birth

Problem

Rates of medical interventions in childbirth have greatly increased in the Western world.